History, Markets, and Revolutions: Reviewing Foucault’s Contribution to the Analysis of Political Temporality

ABSTRACT: This article explores the Foucauldian analysis of the linkage between temporality and politics, addressing mainly two loci of Foucault’s production: the assessment of the post-WWII ordoliberal experience in The Birth of Biopolitics and the Iran reportage for “Corriere Della Sera”. The article emphasizes the relevance of Foucault’s assessment of ordoliberal Germany for contemporary studies on neoliberalism and inscribes Foucault in a wider tradition of thought on the relevance of history and temporality for the comprehension of political dynamics. In TBoB , Foucault offered a prescient analysis of neoliberal temporality and its de-politicizing effects. In his view, ordoliberal theorists and politicians sought to ground political legitimacy in the economy itself, giving birth to a political-economic “double circuit” which did away with history and made political consensus “permanent” and automatic. The connection between neoliberalism, the restructuring of state sovereignty, and temporality will be highlighted. Furthermore, by analyzing the almost-coeval Iranian reportages and the eulogy for Clavel, the article further investigates Foucault’s reflection on the link between temporality, politics, and subjectivation processes. If the analysis of ordoliberal temporality in TBoB describes a linkage between de-temporalization and depoliticization, the reportages will be highlighted as a possible “pars construens” – as a way to reinstate the possibility of political action through the appeal to different ways to experience temporality. The article concludes that Foucault’s sparse comments on temporality can be read as an attempt, albeit not fully developed, not only to envision the de-politicizing effects of marketization but also to envisage new, re-politicizing modes of experiencing temporality and history.